Pipeline project a new Silk Road

[unhappycamper]

Pipeline project a new Silk Road
By M K Bhadrakumar
Dec 16, 2010

An American diplomatic cable that puts Washington to shame originated from the United States Embassy in Ashgabat last December, portraying Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov as "vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative, a practiced liar", a good actor who can be vindictive but isn't a "very bright guy" and is wary of his intellectual superiors.

The WikiLeaks revelation is not likely to please Berdymukhamedov. Yet the irony is that it is this allegedly insecure, mediocre, mercurial politician with a racy private life who is set to make the critical difference between the success and failure of the US strategy in Afghanistan.

The significance of the signing of the inter-governmental agreement over the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas-pipeline project on Saturday in Ashgabat cannot be underestimated. It is a unique Silk Road project that holds the key to resolving many complicated issues in the region.

The project is ostensibly about the transportation of the huge Caspian energy reserves to the world market, but it is also about the stabilization of Afghanistan, fostering of Pakistan-India amity, bonding of Central Asia and South Asia and the overall consolidation of US political, military and economic influence in the strategic high plateau that overlooks Russia, Iran and China.

TAPI is tiptoeing to center stage in the geopolitics of the region primarily due to the pressing need for Ashgabat to find new markets for its gas exports. With the global financial downturn and the fall in Europe's demand for gas, prices crashed. Russia cannot afford to pay top dollar (“European prices”) for the Turkmen gas, nor does it want the 40 bcm (billion cubic meters) of Turkmen gas it previously contracted to purchase.